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Home > Family > Kids' Obesity May be Curbed by Strict School Snack Laws

Kids' Obesity May be Curbed by Strict School Snack Laws

by Karen de Wilde on August 13, 2012

Karen de Wilde

About the Author

Karen de Wilde is a freelance writer who loves to write about health, beauty, food, entertainment, and life in general. Her work has appeared on several websites, including Daily Glow, eHow, LiveStrong, and Screen Junkies. She is excitedly preparing for the birth of her first baby and is very excited about being a new mom.

About the Blog

WhatToExpect.com supports Word of Mom as a place to share stories and highlight the many perspectives and experiences of pregnancy and parenting. However, the opinions expressed in this section are those of individual writers and do not reflect the views of Heidi Murkoff of the What to Expect brand.

Growing up, I didn't eat the best at school. Not only did the school lunches typically consist of unhealthy options such as greasy pizzas, hamburgers, and hotdogs, there were also the vending machines and snack bars that sold candy, chocolate bars, and sodas. There was hardly a fresh vegetable or fruit in sight.

While I maintained a healthy weight, thanks to parents who cooked fresh food at home with lots of vegetables and snacked on fruit, a lot of my classmates were overweight or obese. From my own experience, I firmly believe that bad food in schools contribute to kids' obesity.

The solution to the obesity problem may lie with stricter laws on school snacks. As reported by The New York Times, a new study showed that children who lived in states with strict laws on what could be sold outside of regular school meals — known as "competitive foods" since they compete with school breakfasts and lunches — gained less weight on average over a three-year period than children who lived in states with weak or no laws.

The study followed more than 6,000 children in fifth to eighth grades from 2004 to 2007. States with strict laws were those that either set limits on the amount of calories, sugar, or fat that competitive foods could contain or banned them outright. States with weak laws were those that only offered recommendations without specific guidelines.

While the researchers of the study did not definitively conclude that the stricter laws were directly responsible for the children's lower weight, they did state that they controlled other factors that could have influenced the study's outcome.

To me, it's hardly surprising that strict laws on what can be sold in snack bars and vending machines in public schools help reduce kids' obesity. After all, children are in school for a large part of their day. Once at home, they may resist healthy foods in favor of what they're used to at school. While unhealthy school snacks are probably not the sole cause of overweight children, I believe that it certainly adds to the problem, especially when combined with home environments in which the parents are more lax about food choices and exercise.

Moms, are you able to control what your children eat at school? Tell us below in the comments!